The Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act, or Hunting for Cover on Guns

Despite objections from a handful of Democrats, the Senate voted on Monday to move forward with a pro-hunting bill that has delighted most gun rights groups, including the National Rifle Association.

Introduced by embattled incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act (S. 2363) would unlock funding to build shooting ranges on public land while easing hunting restrictions. But detractors say it is merely a political move designed to provide pro-gun cover for Democratic senators in tough re-election battles.

The bill has caused an uproar among conservation groups because of several contentious measures, key among them a provision to bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating lead bullets and other potentially toxic fishing and hunting equipment.

“This is the definition of kowtowing to the NRA,” said Bill Snape, a counsel for the Center for Biological Diversity, in an interview with OpenSecrets Blog. The association, he added, “continues to write public policy in this country, not only just on guns but now on hunting in our public land.”

The current bill, which is sponsored by 45 Senators on both sides of the aisle, has received the heavy artillery treatment from influential gun rights groups. Out of the 52 lobbyists who listed the almost identical S.1996 bill of the same name on their disclosure reports in the first quarter of 2014, close to half represented the NRA or the militant hunters’ rights group Safari Club International; the two organizations used both in-house lobbyists and the firm Crossroads Strategies. Lobbying information on the current bill, which was introduced in May, isn’t yet available.

Another provision allows pelts, claws, bacula and other trophies from polar bears hunted before the animals were added to the Endangered Species list in 2008 to be brought into the U.S.

Only 41 hunters, who killed the bears in Canada, would be affected, yet it’s not the first time the measure is being pushed forward by a Democratic senator vying for re-election.

“The lead fight is going to be a central fight in this,” said Snape of the Center for Biological Diversity, one of almost a hundred environmental groups who signed a letter urging Senators to block the bill. “It could very well derail the whole bill.” About a dozen lobbyists for conservation groups also worked on its predecessor, S. 1996. Lead is a toxic metal, and lead bullets often fragment into hundreds of pieces when they enter an animal, contaminating the meat that’s ingested by other species.

On Monday, 11 Democratic senators, including Barbara Boxer (Calif.), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, opposed proceeding to vote on the bill in its current form.

“I can’t vote for a measure that makes owning or possessing or using guns more readily or easily usable,” Blumenthal said. “[W]e have failed to act on common-sense, sensible measures that will stop gun violence.”

Another company that has been conspicuously silent on the bill this time around is Cerebrus Capital Management. The private equity firm lobbied for the Sportsmen’s Act of 2012, but after the Newtown shootings, it sold its holdings in the conglomerate Freedom Group. Freedom is the parent of Bushmaster Firearms, maker of the AR-15 rifles used in the Newtown shootings that left 26 dead, including 20 children.

It is “a weak bill, doing little but providing cover for anti-gun senators who want a piece of legislation on their record to give their constituents the appearance they are pro-Second Amendment,” said spokeswoman Danielle Thompson in an email.

The NAGR has already backed conservative opponents in some of the key Senate races faced by Democrats sponsoring the bill. It has donated $5,000 to Joe Miller, one of the Republican opponents of Sen. Mark Begich in Alaska; $5,000 to Owen Hill, a Republican challenger to Sen. Mark Udall in Colorado; and $ 4,000 to Greg Brannon, the conservative opponent who lost the Republican primary in North Carolina to Thom Thillis who will now face off against Hagan. The group has also endorsed Rob Maness, a Republican challenger to Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu in Louisiana.

There are other indications that this bill won’t be enough for Democrats to disarm the gun lobby. Though Hagan introduced the early version of the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act in February, the NRA has already spurned her in favor of her Republican opponent Thom Tillis; the group endorsed him in April and has spent $82,000 so far to help his bid.

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